Oak Valley Snow Park

Oak Valley is one of the local hills for Wonju, the largest city in the province of Gangwon-do (the other hill near Wonju being Welli Hilli Park).

As is so common in Korea, the ski area neighbours a golf course with a large hotel / condo arrangement at the base, but this is the only one where the golf course is literally directly next to the pistes. When you come off the top of the ‘Flower’ chair you’re actually strapping in on the golf course – if you’ve ever wanted to walk around on a golf course in your ski wear, you can fulfil that dream at Oak Valley…

Oak Valley has 3 chairlifts going up from the one base; one of them (‘Mountain’) goes right to the top, another (‘Bird’) goes halfway, and the third (‘Flower’) is for beginners. From the top there’s a handful of runs to choose from, all of which feed down to a wide, gentle piste coming across to skier’s left back to the base area. This wide piste at the bottom has its own chair (Flower) and it’s a good bit of terrain for learning on; the runs from the top are good for intermediates, but advanced riders will exhaust all the options in short order. There is a reasonable stab at a terrain park, but it requires full laps of the Mountain chair each time you hit it.

Oak Valley is good for:

Those coming from Wonju.

Good hill for learning and progressing to intermediate runs.

Freestyle. The park’s nothing special, but at least it’s there.

Being on a golf course in ski gear.

Strapping in on the golf course!

Oak valley is not so good for:

Terrain – there’s nothing at all for advanced skiers.

Oak Valley: ticketing

Oak Valley’s slopes are open from 8:30am to 4am and it follows the standard ticketing model in Korea, with the operating hours split into day & night by a 90-minute snow grooming break at 5pm; the daytime hours are subdivided into Morning and Afternoon, the nighttime hours are divided into Night and Late Night. You can get tickets for any one of those individual slots (of 4.5 to 5.5 hours each), plus various combinations of the above. You can check the prices here, also here’s a photo of their 2016/17 rates:

Oak Valley: accommodation

Oak Valley has a collection of massive condo buildings at the base of the hill, and you can search & book their rooms here

Airbnb is also a great choice for Seoul or Wonju – hosts usually have it set up so you can arrive & check in by yourself without having to wait around or meet anyone, and the housing standards are decent with underfloor heating and excellent internet connections as standard. If you haven’t used Airbnb before, you can get a 35-dollar discount off your first rental by signing up through Snow Guide Korea; simply click on this link and register!

Pyeongchang 2018 Accommodation

If you’re looking for information on where to stay for the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics, Oak Valley is a decent backup option as a base for the mountain events (if you can score a room!); see this page for advice and the latest updates

How to get to Oak Valley

From Seoul to Wonju take either the highway bus from Express Bus Terminal (90 minutes, 8,000 won) or the train from Cheongyangni Station (1 hour, 6,300 won), whichever is more convenient from your starting point.

The resort runs a free shuttle bus from Wonju, schedule here (you need to click on the middle tab). It’s all in Korean, so to help you decipher it here’s a screenshot (of the 2017 spring schedule, click to enlarge):

The boarding points are listed on the left; arriving from Seoul by highway bus, you’ll board the shuttle in Wonju at the 시외버스터미널 stop (the Intercity Bus Terminal), on the westbound side of the street i.e. on the main road in front of the bus terminal, on the same side. Arriving at Wonju Station by train, the shuttle boarding point is 역전시장, which is a short distance south on Wonil-ro, on the southbound side i.e. on the right side.

These two boarding points are clearly shown on the maps on the lower portion of this page.

When the new KTX line opens in late 2017, it’ll be the fastest (and most expensive) way to reach Wonju; the journey time will be around 60 minutes from Seoul Station to Manjong Station (or 45 minutes from Cheongnyangni), for 9,700 won. Presumably the Oak Valley shuttle bus route will be altered to include Manjong Station (Oak Valley’s quite close to this new station), although that isn’t yet confirmed (this page will be updated as & when these details become clear)

The base facilities at Oak Valley are excellent, as is standard in Korea:

Any questions about Oak Valley? Leave a comment below!

For more Gangwon-do resorts, see here; for full reviews of every Korean ski resort, see here

Hi Beam, the KTX takes an hour from Seoul Station to Manjong, you can search & book tickets here. The latest Oak Valley shuttle bus schedule is here (click on the middle tab), but it still doesn’t include Manjong Station. I don’t know if they’re going to change it or not (they’re terrible at answering messages)… if they don’t change it, it will actually be better to take the regular train from Cheongnyangni to Wonju Station (also about an hour, but you have to get to Cheongnyangni first), and then the shuttle bus from there. To be honest, I would probably recommend going to Welli Hilli Park instead.

The KTX starts service on Friday, so hopefully any updates should be made soon – I’ll post again here if they do change the shuttle bus route. Hope this helps, and let me know if you have any more questions

We plan to go to pyeongchang-trout-festival in the same day of skiing.
Could you mind ti recommend me the ski reort that near this festival & the prices of ski lesson are reasonable.
We can use the KTX so, if any ski resort has a shuttle bus from the KTX station it’d be better.

Firstly we plan to go to the festival first in the morning > in the afternoon around 3pm. Taking one ski lesson and back to the incheon airport by ktx.

I don’t know much about the trout festival, but the location is Jinbu town. Jinbu has a KTX station (the name is Jinbu Station), and Yongpyong ski resort is located near Jinbu. So, for your plan you should ski at Yongpyong. See here for Yongpyong

Hey Kevin, Welli Hilli’s better for advanced & upper intermediate skiers as it has steeper slopes and a halfpipe & terrain parks. Oak Valley’s better for lower intermediates due to the gentler gradient. They’re both fine for beginners, as they both have suitable learning slopes.